


Off With Their Shirts

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice, Galavant (TV)
Genre: Admiration, Bad Puns, Bartenders, Crack, Gay Bar, Gen, Humor, Making Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 04:03:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6784402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam is taken prisoner and forced to wait tables at a very shirtless, very ageless gay bar, he's forced to ally himself with the very handsome bartender to gain his own freedom and find his client's hidden funds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off With Their Shirts

“It’s Memorial Day weekend, Mikey!” Sam Axe yelled into his cell phone as he elbowed his way into Fernando’s Hula Hacienda. “Please tell me you don’t have another emergency.”

“Nothing like that, Sam,” he said. “But I’ve got some important news and I thought I’d tell you straight off.”

Sam grinned at the cute girl tending bar and lifted two fingers, ending up with two bottles of beer. “Shoot,” he instructed. 

“Our client had a breakthrough this morning. After a couple of rounds of Ma’s pancakes he suddenly remembered where he stored the last of the money he got from the heist.”

“At least now we know Maddie’s cooking’s good for something,” Sam cracked. “So spill the deets, where is it?”

“Do you know anything about the Forest of Sherwood Glenn?”

Sam paused. “No, but I have a bad feeling that I’m gonna miss the Marlins game looking for it.”

“I’m afraid that’s the problem – that’s apparently where the money’s been planted. Somewhere in England, in the basement of an old pub stuck in the middle of the woods.”

Sam actually stared at his phone in blatant confusion. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I never kid. But I have some general coordinates, at least. Even the locals have trouble finding that bar, but apparently once a person gets there it isn’t hard to find your way around. It’s a place located deep in a royal park though, private property, so I might need to get you Interpol clearance….”

“Jesus, Mike! I haven’t spoken to anyone at Interpol in months! Why do you think they’d give me any help?”

“Look at it this way,” Michael said. “It’ll be a chance to brush up on your charm school skills.”

“You’re a true pal, Mike,” Sam grumbled.

He could nearly hear Michael’s smirk from the other end of the phone. “Always, Sam.”

**** 

It did seem that the Sam Axe school of charm was good for one thing, and the thing in question was getting him a seat in coach that delivered him to England posthaste. He made it through customs at Heathrow in record time, and then managed to find a cab that was willing to take him to the edge of the park.

Dropped at the rim of the greenery, Sam was left to his own devices and at the mercy of his compass, native sense of directions and the thin card in his pocket that proclaimed his clearance via Interpol. 

“The Enchanted Forrest,” Sam re-read, double-checking the information Michael had given him. He supposed it wouldn’t be too hard to find where he was supposed to go once he started following the directions – true north and straight to the heart of it all. He started out marching and found himself stopping mid-march to take a hearty swig of the beer he’d bought at the duty free shop.

Funny how, between the drinking and the time he took to re-adjust his compass, Sam managed to get all turned around. So by the time he heard some pumping disco tunes throbbing in the air and noticed a bar sitting smack dab in the middle of the forest floor he was more than ready to take a load off. 

That the clientele was mostly masculine and that some of them. Sam smiled but declined their numbers; there was nothing wrong with a little admiration but he simply didn’t swing that way. When the blonde barmistress approached him, he automatically popped his collar and offered her a grin and a hand. 

Which was when she started singing to him about taking his shirt off. Or else.

*** 

Sam had done a hundred or so jobs as Chuck Finley by now; he supposed if his alter ego had been a beauty pageant judge, a priest, a fruit vendor and a stripper he could very well be a shirtless stud stuck waiting in a mythical bar forever under the thrall of an immortal evil queen.

One day – probably a few months into his captivity, though his time in the Enchanted Forest seemed to stretch on endlessly before Sam in a way that was weirdly timeless – a new man stood behind the bar. He was quite a sight; eye candy in the shape of a dude, the kind of guy who could make a woman drool herself to death in a single second.

In other words, the kid was definitely going to horn in on Sam’s tips.

He headed toward the bar with an empty tray and a gleam in his eyes. “Hey, ready to submit my order here.”

The well-sculpted man eyed Sam up and down. “I didn’t know the queen had hired a bear.”

“Ha hah,” Sam replied. “Table six wants whiskey sours. ALL whiskey sours,” he said. “And pleased don’t skimp on the sour.”

“Very well,” said the other man, who immediately started shaking up the beverages with a long sigh. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in escaping, friend…”

“…Uh actually, I’d love to…”

“No,” Galavant mused, “I suppose with the number of tips you’ve received over the past few days you’re fat on the teat of the bar’s generosity…”

“….Buddy, I said I wanted to escape, now what’s the plan?” 

“Oh. No one’s ever agreed to go with me when I suggested that. I do have a friend who works here. He has an uncle who knows something about the place’s back door. Meet me there during your next break and we’ll make a run for it.”

“You’ve got a deal, pal,” he said. But first, Sam thought to himself, he was going to go in search of the client’s missing funds.

*** 

Two hours later, Sam was running in the general direction of the nearest road, a sack, his shirt and his cell phone clutched in his grip. He finally dropped a call to Michael when he found a blacktop.

“Thank God,” Michael said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for the past two months. Did you find the money.”

“Yep, thanks to a new friend. I should tell you about him sometime, Mikey, he’s got this giant horse and hell of a voice and this guy with a beard who think he’s some kind of king – entertaining as hell.”

“Sounds fascinating. So where did you find the money?”

“That’s the best part of the story, Mikey. It was stashed under a stack of old wine barrels in the back of the place. Stuck up in the back of this barrel. So I…”

“…Must you say it?” Michael asked.

“Found the loot in a bunghole in the Enchanted Forest.”

“Positively amazing, Sam.”

“I try.”


End file.
